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Mean Fields: Jonathan Miller: Bright lights, small village

I step into the night air with the dog for a final constitutional and hear the newly restored church bells, breaking silence after decades. Snow is predicted. It is extremely dark with almost no moon. Not far away, an owl is hooting. I shine the flashlight on some rabbits. I am over my urge to shoot them. Yet, I ought to work harder to bond with this place.

English bells have a tone quite different from the bells you hear in France, for which I am sure there is an explanation, should any campanologists wish to share it. Church bells is one issue on which I take the side of the English over the French. The English ones just sound better; the French ones somehow discordant, less melodious.

At the very dawn of this column I churlishly declared that the churchy people in my village in England would never get